"If everyone could please take their seats," said Maester Mornstar, the director of the meeting, "then we will begin."
Mornstar looked over the Planning Room, over the rows of seats now filled to capacity—and this was excluding all of Captain Grinko's men, who were not on the College grounds. Mornstar's favorite idiom was this: "Measure twice, cut once." He hoped that all of this planning the Department had done, beginning
long before tonight as it were, proved to be something like this, that it accounted for the lion's share of the time invested in this venture, and that the actual expedition would be so smooth as to be hardly of note in comparison. Maybe, with any good fortune, all the men and women gathered in this room would be superfluous.
Yet, most notable among all of the room's occupants, sat ex-Maester
Erren Serris. It had sent something of a chill down Mornstar's spine to see him enter the room, for his presence carried with it...well, an ominous portent, to say the least.
With the Planning Room filled and the door closed, Mornstar commenced, "Gentlemen...ladies...some of you know more than others. Some none at all. This meeting is meant to apprise everyone on the purpose of this expedition, and to impress upon you the true import of the matter facing
Elbion. Everyone will leave this room tonight with a better understanding of the mission they have signed up to undertake." Mornstar gestured to one of the other two presenters and said, "Braddock, take it away."
Professor Braddock, the most elderly of the three presenters and who specialized in Histories of
Arethil and the Arcane, pointed to the map which was aglow upon the wall. His voice was a bit nasally. "If I may direct your attention...here."
He tapped an area northwest of both Elbion and
Lazular.
"The Seret Mountains. Home to many a fascinating peoples and subjects, but let us not digress. Many expeditions has the College—er, namely, the Department—led into the Mountains, but the one which concerns us today..." Again he tapped the map, this time in a more precise location in the mountainous area, "...is what we have come to call, 'the Cathedral'. A terribly generic name, I know, and the monikers, I'm afraid, will remain so. Case in point, the ancient people who built the Cathedral we simply call 'the Seretians'. Unfortunately, work on decoding the fragments of their language which are available to us is still ongoing, but, most pertinent to us tonight, is..."
Professor Braddock swallowed, and, in a tell of nervousness, adjusted his spectacles.
"...a Date. One that repeats in many of the extant sources we have recovered from the Cathedral and the few other surviving sites of the Seretians. Now, when first this Date was discovered, not much was made of it—no context, no context you see. But, ever since the College could properly resume work after that...erhm...awful dragon incident, and further work into deciphering and translating could be done, there has been...credibility...to the notion that..."
Maester Mornstar picked up where the fainthearted Professor left off: "To the notion that this date may well signal the coming of a catastrophic
event. Something, perhaps, like another
Drakormir in scale."
Uneasy murmurs spread throughout the room.
Mornstar lifted his hands and said over them, "Which is why we are acting
now. The
Seretian Date isn't for another three months' time, which allows us ample opportunity to intervene. Now, the method of this intervention, we have determined, is very simple: in the main chamber of the Cathedral, there sits upon the central pedestal an artifact. Some of you already know its name: 'Pinnacle'. We believe the power vested in the Pinnacle is key to the machinations of the Seretian Date proceeding as its ancient architects intended, so we merely need to secure the Pinnacle and take it from the Cathedral." Mornstar smiled ruefully, unable to help the brief glance toward ex-Maester Serris. "But some of you well know that removing an ancient relic from its resting place is never easy. And we do expect, with a high degree of certainty, for there to be complications. First, let us start with what we know for an absolute fact. Professor."
Mornstar gestured to the third presenter then, Professor Vaulish, a half-orc with a head full of magnificently styled hair and an academic specialty in Natural Philosophy and Arcane Phenomena. Professor Vaulish stepped forward and addressed the room, "Due to its rarity, I do not expect many of you here in this room to be familiar with Magic Fog. For those who do not know, Magic Fog is a supernatural weather event, where fog mixes in with otherwise low-level disturbances in the flow of magic: the result being a Fog which slowly drains the magic of all who enter it down to nothing. The Cathedral and its surrounding mountainsides, from the time when we first discovered it, has
always been observed to be shrouded in Magic Fog. This is no ordinary Magic Fog—ha, as if it were ordinary to begin with. It is the conclusion of myself and my colleagues that the Magic Fog enveloping the Cathedral is, in fact, a work of the Seretians themselves, that they have through secrets unknown managed to harness it and generate it to protect the Cathedral. If this Fog affected the Pinnacle, or anything else in the Cathedral, they wouldn't be using it. You can expect, therefore, an unfair playing field: your magic will be drained and gone, and all the magic left behind by the Seretians will be active and ready to thwart would-be interlopers."
Maester Mornstar took over again, this time with a nod to Captain Grinko sitting in the front row. "Hence why you and your men will be essential. Our best theorizing, based on all the physical evidence available to us in our earlier forays into the Cathedral, is that guardians of some sort may emerge once the Pinnacle is disturbed. We don't know how many, or how dangerous they might be, but we need not stand and fight them.
All we need to do is secure the Pinnacle and leave—that's it. Now, to that end, from the main chamber there are two ways out: the front, and the back. If the front is a viable exit after the Pinnacle is secured, fantastic, simply evacuate the structure from there, fighting retreat though it may be. But if the front is not an option, do not fear. Though the back way from the Cathedral leads further up into the mountains, we have a means of extracting you all from those otherwise inescapable heights. Vaulish."
Professor Vaulish, on cue, went to one corner of the Planning Room and took something large from the table and came back into the projected light. He held up a big rolled bundle for all to see.
Maester Mornstar smiled. "Flying carpets. We have skilled pilots of them on task for this expedition, and Professor Vaulish has tested them in the conditions of the Magic Fog; if we keep all of the carpets on standby, down at our base camp, and thus out of the Fog, they will be able with their speed to make a few roundtrips up to the Cathedral's summit to extract you. If it comes to it, and you must use the back way to flee from the Cathedral, simply light a mundane signal fire, hold position—and your position up there
will be defensible—and help will arrive. No one will be left behind."
Then came Mornstar's conclusion of the session. "Gentlemen, ladies...we will not, on our watch, allow another Drakormir-like event to befall our beloved city of Elbion. I pray that we have wildly mistranslated the meaning of the Seretian Date, for that would only be a boon. But if that is not so, if the Seretian Date does point to some impending doom, then you must,
must, secure the Pinnacle, and stop it from happening." He took in a breath. "In one week's time, after our final preparations are complete, the expedition will depart for the Mountains. Use this interim time wisely. I bid you all a good night."
Erren Serris Wayne
